Miriam Altman

Miriam Altman is a South African economist, business person, social activist, and strategist.

Education
Altman read economics at McGill University where she got a Bachelor's degree in 1984. She then proceeded to earn a M.Phil in economics from Cambridge and a Ph.D. in economics from Manchester University in 1989 and 1996 respectively.

Career
Altman served as an Executive Director at the Human Sciences Research Council where she worked on the "Employment Scenarios" project - its major project - from 2002 to 2012. The aim of the project was to build a scientific knowledge base and draw together stakeholders to engage on the ideas - the government, the private sector, labour and academia - to shape feasible, implementable solutions to reduce South Africa's high unemployment.

She was the Chief of Strategy and Regulatory Affairs at Telkom from June 2013 and April 2016, crafting and orchestrating its turnaround.

She was a Commissioner on the National Planning Commission in the Office of the SA Presidency - the body tasked to guide long-term planning for South Africa - where she was recently since 2010. (She was reappointed for a second term in September 2015 to 2022.)

In addition to the aforementioned roles, she is a Professor of 4IR Practice in the School of Economics at the University of Johannesburg and has been an Adjunct Professor at University of Cape Town, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, and a non-resident Fellow at the Centre for Emerging Markets at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai.

Personal life
Outside her professional life, Altman is very engaged in public interest initiatives and youth leadership programmes. Altman is also very involved in the arts, and performs and records as a jazz vocalist.

Her life partner was Leslie Maasdorp, Vice President and CFO at the New Development Bank until 2021.